what's the history with Scotty and Poppy?

[grasswire]

On Olbermann, Scotty said that the awful Washington culture of extreme partisanship had been going on for fifteen years. And the quote from his book about the negativity of the Bush campaign against McGovern was a clear attack on GHW Bush. Is there a back story to this?

I fault Olbermann for not asking followups. He could have pursued this issue. We might have learned something about 41 involvement in 43's WH.

[cynatnite]

1. Here you go...

After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, where he was president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Texas Alpha Chapter, McClellan was the three-time campaign manager for his mother. In addition, he worked on political grassroots efforts and was the Chief of Staff to a Texas State Senator.

Karen Hughes, Governor Bush's communications director, hired McClellan to be Bush's deputy press secretary. McClellan served as Governor Bush's traveling press secretary during the 2000 Presidential election. McClellan became White House Deputy Press Secretary in 2003. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, who stepped down as White House Press Secretary on July 15, 2003. McClellan announced his resignation as Press Secretary on April 19, 2006. Many newspapers at the time reported that McClellan was forced to resign due to the Valerie Plame issue and handling of Hurricane Katrina relief. On April 26, it was announced that Fox News pundit Tony Snow would succeed him in the position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_McClellan#Career

[grasswire]

2. I appreciate the effort

Thanks. :-)

I'm digging for info on any dealings or bad blood between Scott and his family with Senior Bush.

[cynatnite]

4. Scott's father wrote a book about the JFK assassination...

As I understand it, it implicates LBJ. There are a few here who think that Senior bush played a role in the assassination since was in the CIA and in Dallas on that day. It's possible that Scott's dad may rubbed senior bush the wrong way on this. :shrug: I don't know. I'm not a tin foil person, but you never know.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

5. According to his father's best seller on the Kennedy Assassination

LBJ was coaxed into providing the security list for Kennedy's trip through Dallas to some big oil men he knew with the understanding that they would arrange for someone to do the hit. In the book, McClellan mentions the name of Texas oil man David Harold Byrd as one of the conspirators, who was friends with George H.W. Bush and both were members of the Dallas Petroleum Club. The idea was that Kennedy had to be killed to preserve something called the petroleum depletion allowance. I'm not sure what the latter terms refer to, but I think it's something that big oil wanted to keep and that Kennedy was opposed to.

Texas oil man Byrd, implicated in the Kennedy Assassination in McClellan's father's book supposedly was responsible through his partners for bringing George H.W. Bush from Connecticut to Texas and giving him his start in the oil business. Byrd strangely enough owned the school depository building from which Oswald allegedly fired the fatal shots. I just wonder if Scott McClellan has any contact with his father since the divorce with his mother many years ago and, if they do, whether they have discussed the Kennedy assassination and the possible connection of George H.W. Bush.

[funflower]

8. Ironic that this man's son would work for the Big Oil president. n/t

[grasswire]

14. maybe Scott's dad knows where GHW Bush was on that day.

It's possible.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. Scott McClellan's father has led an interesting life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barr_McClellan

He wrote a bestseller on the Kennedy Assassination entitled Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK in which he accused rich Texas oil men of involvement in the plot. McClellan's father held prominent positions as an attorney in the Johnson Administration and also handled a number of major cases in private law practice. Also something I didn't know, Scott McClellan has a brother named Mark who also has held important positions in the Bush White House. I wonder if Mark McClellan is still working there.

[Fridays Child]

6. Wikipedia on Mark McClellan...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_McClellan

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. Brother Mark McClellan quit the White House in 2006 as well

Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Commissioner of the FDA and later the Administrator for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Bush. It looks like Mark McClellan quit at about the same time his brother Scott left. I'm wondering if there's something more to this story when both brothers leave at about the same time.

[Fridays Child]

10. Their mother, originally a Democrat who switched to the GOP in 1986...

...became an independent when she ran for governor of Texas, in 2006. Apparently, the whole family pulled away from Republican politics that year.

[Virginia Dare]

13. I got the impression the mother's campaign had something to do with it..

it seemed like Bushco completely shunned the McClellans when they threw Scotty out on his ear, and that's when the bitterness started. I'm wondering if Scotty said or did something they didn't like with regards to the Valerie Plame investigation.

[funflower]

9. Weird. He wrote a book alleging that TWO of his former employers conspired to kill JFK.

Makes Scottie's book look pretty tame.

[grasswire]

12. I'll bet that family knows an awful lot.

There's a back story here -- I can smell it. Too bad the press won't dig around.

[PDJane]

11. the oil depletion allowance

was basically a tax savings that the owner of an oil well got for selling his oil. A firm could reduce its corporate income tax by about 27.5% of value of the crude sold. The Revenue Act of 1924 limited the depletion allowance to no more than 50 percent of a property's taxable income before depletion but after deduction of expenses directly associated with the producing property.

In other words, the producer was given a tax break for producing and selling oil!

Of course, this led to producers doing this thing (because they may have been greedy, but not stupid) of buying up everything from production to the pumps, so that they could control the price and still get the depletion allowance. That ended in 1974. After that, they "divested" themselves of downstream retailers.

http://wps.aw.com/aw_carltonper_modernio_4/21/5566/1424998.cw/content/index.html